Unshackled Moments ~ January 23, 2017 ~ Tourniquet

There are things that help with sobriety in the same way way that a tourniquet helps keep one from bleeding to death when we've suffered a horrendous cut. Behavior modification techniques have their place, and are even quite important at times. Much like the tourniquet, something must be done to stop the immediate loss before a lasting solution can be put in place.

You can't properly stitch up a wound where it can fully heal if you don't stop the patient from bleeding out beforehand. Fear of consequences, accountability, peer and or mentor support, groups and encouragement, avoiding triggers, old places, people and things, avoiding certain stress, preventing being hungry, angry, lonely or tired, etc., are all things  that can help us abstain from those things we are in bondage too, for a while, hopefully long enough to get the real and lasting help that we need.

But if you tie of a limb with a tourniquet and leave it, the limb will die. If you only use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and don't do something to close and treat the wound itself, you have only provided a stop measure and not dealt with the real danger and problem.

Our addictions are born out of fear and pain. The things we use that end up using us originally promise to take away or distract us from our fears and hurt. Eventually they do little but adding to our misery. At first though, they work well. They keep our emotional pain in check. or provide relief and comfort or at least distract us so that we don't have to acknowledge and deal with the hurt and fear. But once we are in the grips of what we wrongly put our hope in and have lost control of, we need something else before we die. What once was hope to help has left us bleeding out.

A tourniquet may help in the short term, but no support system, no techniques or behavior modification can work long or as the only measure taken. Like a tourniquet, using only this triage treatments will eventually worsen the situation and leave us dying. The wound must be addressed and treated. The original hurts and fears that led us to try the false treatments that led to addictions in the first place. The addictions and bondage are symptoms, not the true issue. No matter what evil has been done to us or that we have done, our wounds need to be treated by a doctor, not just our symptoms. The Great Physician loves us and wants to do more than give us a survival aid. He wants to give us true healing, restoration and freedom. The soul sickness that stems from separation between us and our Creator and the needs and fears that this deficiency cause are  the roots wounds that must be healed if we are to be truly and lastingly freed.



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